


Not While I'm Around

by Altenprano



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: a bit hurt/comfort, frumpkin is a good familiar, very very pre stream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 15:17:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14813838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Altenprano/pseuds/Altenprano
Summary: After a scuffle in a tavern, Nott is injured, and Caleb does his best to take care of her. In doing so, he makes a promise.-Based on a prompt from twinvax on tumblr: "The first time either Nott or Caleb got hurt on their travels together from fighting a person who didn't take kindly to them"





	Not While I'm Around

Caleb has to wait until the fight dies down before he can rescue his new friend.

Frumpkin gets there before him, and the cat is prodding anxiously at the little goblin girl, hissing at anyone who dares to come near her that isn’t Caleb. The fey cat licks Nott’s face, and Caleb breathes a sigh of relief when Nott stirs—a bit dazed from the fight, but alive, thank the gods.

She tries to sit up, and Frumpkin makes a disgruntled mewling sound, punctuated with a firm paw on her shoulder.

“Let’s take you upstairs, _ja_?” Caleb says, picking her up. “Get you cleaned up.”

She weighs little more than a human child, and so, even for Caleb, picking her up and carrying her to their small room is not difficult for him to do. Frumpkin follows alongside Caleb, his tail flicking back and forth, bounding up the rickety stairs without so much as a sound.

When they reach their room (there’s a bit of a draft, but a roof over their heads is a roof), Caleb sets Nott down on the bed and begins rummaging through his pack. He’s no healer, he knows that, but he knows what to look for, and how to deal with things a little beyond scrapes and bruises.

“I had them on the ropes you know,” Nott says, taking a long sip from her flask, grimacing as the alcohol touches the split in her lip.

“I know,” Caleb says, finding a small roll of linen in his bag, as well as a bottle of greenish liquid with bits of herbs sitting in the bottom (he knows their names and uses—his mother taught him well—but that is a detail he can do without for now. With some effort, he uncorks the bottle, grimacing at the sharp smell of the herbs, which strikes him for a moment, then fades. “Let me see where it hurts, and I’ll do my best.”

He directs Frumpkin into Nott’s lap, and sets her dented flask aside while he does his best to determine the extent of her injuries.

The men who attacked her in the main room of the tavern did not look strong, nor did they look armed, so Caleb excepts a few bruises, maybe a few scrapes. He finds these easy enough—there’s Nott’s split lip, which looks to have stopped bleeding for now, as well as several tender looking spots that will develop into nasty bruises later. There isn’t much he can do for bruises, as he’s no real healer, only the son of one. He moves on from her face and to her arms, worried that he might miss something.

Her hands are fine. There are bits of grime and…blood, it would seem, under her nails (so she did manage to get a few blows in, he thinks, though his stomach rolls at the thought of her drawing blood with her claws), and there’s a scrape along the back of her left hand, which he cleans out with the tonic and wraps with a short length of bandage. On her right arm, he finds a jagged cut, no doubt made by a drunken hand with some sort of blade. It is not long, nor is it deep, but Caleb is sure to clean it thoroughly and bandage it as gently as possible, leaving enough of the linen so that he can change the dressing in the morning.

“Perhaps we should be more careful,” he tells her, once he is certain that there is nothing else that needs his immediate attention. What he has done will do for now, though perhaps it would not be a bad idea to purchase bandages at the next earliest convenience, just in case.

Nott shrugs. “I was being plenty careful,” she insists, gesturing to the mask that hangs around her neck, the twine holding it a bit frayed. “Like I said, I almost had him.”

Caleb cannot help but smile, and he casts Mending on the twine, fixing it enough that he will not worry about the mask slipping loose. “I’m sure you did,” he says, brow furrowed. “All I’m saying is, perhaps you should stay a bit closer to me, _ja_?”

She looks at him for a moment, yellow eyes wide, and nods. “They won’t be there in the morning, will they?”

His brow furrows. “I do not know,” he says, tucking away the remaining linen and tonic, and searching for the silver thread. “But if they are, we can always leave very early, so that they do not see us.”

He knows that people do not take kindly to goblins. He himself grew up with stories about goblins that would eat children, or steal chickens. He remembers when a band of goblins attacked the village near his own, and nearly drove the entire population away. People have their reasons to dislike goblins, and while he knows that Nott is an exception to the barbaric rules of goblin-kind, he also knows that most folk are not aware that such exceptions can exist.

And when people do not understand, they tend to act out of fear, cornering a lone goblin who is simply minding her own business and attempting to beat the shit out of her.

Nott is lucky the men in the bar gave up quickly—they realized it wasn’t much sport, if she wasn’t going to fight back—and Caleb hates that he was not able to defend her. But what was he supposed to do? Sure, he has his spells, and he knows he is powerful enough, but he will not touch that power, not unless he absolutely has to.

Carefully, he sets the wire around the perimeter of the room, muttering the proper words as he goes. He watches Nott and Frumpkin out of the corner of his eye, and thanks whatever gods still care for him that his friend is okay.

Once he is done, he takes his books out of their holsters and stacks them reverently by the bed. He is used to sleeping in his clothes, and so he folds up his coat and sets it by his books before settling himself on the bed.

Nott lies beside him, her mask and flask placed beside his books. Her small body is warm, but warmer still is the body of Frumpkin, who settles himself in the small space between them, purring.

She is the first to fall asleep—she always is—and Caleb takes the moment to make a promise, to her and to whatever gods are watching.

“I won’t let anything hurt you,” he tells her sleeping form. “I promise.”

It is a strange promise to make, as they’ve known each other only two weeks outside of prison, but the way he sees it, she is his chance to redeem himself, and in protecting and teaching her, he might serve penance for his crime. Maybe the gods brought her to him, or maybe they saw an opportunity in a situation and have given him this chance.

Maybe there are no gods who care for him anymore.

Gods or no gods, he knows he will do his best to protect here, and teach her. They are all the other has, and, while they are quite the odd family, they are a family nonetheless, and family looks out for each other.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from "Not While I'm Around," from Sweeney Todd, and there was a brief motion to take advantage of the pun that presented itself and title it "Nott While I'm Around." This title has since been changed and this note added. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this, and thank you so much!


End file.
